Spring Boot + Vue.js: Authentication with JWT & Spring Security Example

In this tutorial, we will learn how to build a full stack Spring Boot + Vue.js Authentication example. The back-end server uses Spring Boot with Spring Security for JWT authentication and Spring Data JPA for interacting with database. The front-end will be created with Vue and Vuex. We’ll also use vee-validate to perform Form validation and vue-fontawesome for make our UI more comfortable to view.

It will be pretty long, but interesting. Let’s get started.

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Related Post: Spring Boot + Vue.js example: Build a CRUD App
More Practice:
– CRUD GraphQL APIs example with Spring Boot, MySQL & Spring JPA
– Vue + Spring Boot: File Upload example

Run both Project on same server/port:
How to integrate Vue.js with Spring Boot

JWT (JSON Web Token)

Nowaday, JWT is popular for Authentication and Information Exchange. Instead of creating a Session (Session-based Authentication), Server encodes data into a JSON Web Token and send it to the Client. The Client saves the JWT, then every Request from Client to protected routes or resources should be attached that JWT (commonly at header). The Server will validate that JWT and return the Response.

Comparing with Session-based Authentication that need to store Session on Cookie, the big advantage of JWT (Token-based Authentication) is that we store the Token on Client side: Local Storage for Browser, Keychain for IOS and SharedPreferences for Android… So we don’t need to build another backend project that supports Native Apps or an additional Authentication module for Native App users.

There are three important parts of a JWT: Header, Payload, Signature. Together they are combined to a standard structure: header.payload.signature.

The Client typically attact JWT in Authorization header with Bearer prefix:

Authorization: Bearer [header].[payload].[signature]

For more details, you can visit:
In-depth Introduction to JWT-JSON Web Token

Spring Boot Vue.js Authentication example

It will be a full stack, with Spring Boot for back-end and Vue.js for front-end. The system is secured by Spring Security with JWT Authentication.

• User can signup new account, login with username & password.
• Authorization by the role of the User (admin, moderator, user)

Screenshots

The images below shows screenshots of our Vue.js App.

– Anyone can access a public page before logging in:

– A new User can signup:

– After signup is successful, User can login. When it’s done, App directs the User to Profile page:

– UI for admin login:

– If a User who doesn’t have Admin role tries to access Admin/Moderator Board page:

Demo

This is full Spring Boot + Vue.js authentication demo (with form validation, check signup username/email duplicates, test authorization with 3 roles: Admin, Moderator, User):

Flow for User Registration and User Login

The diagram shows flow for User Registration process and User Login process.

I think it’s not too difficult to understand. We have 2 endpoints for authentication:

• api/auth/signup for User Registration
• api/auth/signin for User Login

If Client wants to send request to protected data/endpoints, a legal JWT must be added to HTTP Authorization Header.

Back-end with Spring Boot & Spring Security

Overview

Our Spring Boot Application can be summarized in the diagram below:

Let me explain it.

Spring Security

– WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter is the crux of our security implementation. It provides HttpSecurity configurations to configure cors, csrf, session management, rules for protected resources. We can also extend and customize the default configuration that contains the elements below.

– UserDetailsService interface has a method to load User by username and returns a UserDetails object that Spring Security can use for authentication and validation.

– UserDetails contains necessary information (such as: username, password, authorities) to build an Authentication object.

– UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken gets {username, password} from login Request, AuthenticationManager will use it to authenticate a login account.

– AuthenticationManager has a DaoAuthenticationProvider (with help of UserDetailsService & PasswordEncoder) to validate UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken object. If successful, AuthenticationManager returns a fully populated Authentication object (including granted authorities).

– OncePerRequestFilter makes a single execution for each request to our API. It provides a doFilterInternal() method that we will implement parsing & validating JWT, loading User details (using UserDetailsService), checking Authorizaion (using UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken).

– AuthenticationEntryPoint will catch unauthorized error and return a 401 when Clients access protected resources without authentication.

Repository contains UserRepository & RoleRepository to work with Database, will be imported into Controller.

Controller receives and handles request after it was filtered by OncePerRequestFilter.

– AuthController handles signup/login requests

– TestController has accessing protected resource methods with role based validations.

Technology

To implement the server with concept above, we will use:
– Java 8
– Spring Boot 2.1.8.RELEASE (with Spring Security, Spring Web, Spring Data JPA)
– jjwt 0.9.1
– PostgreSQL/MySQL
– Maven 3.6.1

Project Structure

The structure of Spring Boot back-end project is pretty complicated:

You can see that there are 5 packages:

security: we configure Spring Security & implement Security Objects here.

• WebSecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter
• UserDetailsServiceImpl implements UserDetailsService
• UserDetailsImpl implements UserDetails
• AuthEntryPointJwt implements AuthenticationEntryPoint
• AuthTokenFilter extends OncePerRequestFilter
• JwtUtils provides methods for generating, parsing, validating JWT

controllers handle signup/login requests & authorized requests.

• AuthController: @PostMapping(‘/signin’), @PostMapping(‘/signup’)
• TestController: @GetMapping(‘/api/test/all’), @GetMapping(‘/api/test/[role]’)

repository has intefaces that extend Spring Data JPA JpaRepository to interact with Database.

• UserRepository extends JpaRepository
• RoleRepository extends JpaRepository

models defines two main models for Authentication (User) & Authorization (Role). They have many-to-many relationship.

• User: id, username, email, password, roles
• Role: id, name

payload defines classes for Request and Response objects

We also have application.properties for configuring Spring Datasource, Spring Data JPA and App properties (such as JWT Secret string or Token expiration time).

Implementation

You can find step by step to implement this Spring Boot – Spring Security App in the post:
Secure Spring Boot App with Spring Security & JWT Authentication

For working with MongoDB:
Spring Boot, MongoDB: JWT Authentication with Spring Security

Or PostgreSQL:
Spring Boot, Spring Security, PostgreSQL: JWT Authentication example

Front-end with Vue.js & Vuex

Overview

Our Vue.js App can be summarized in component diagram below:

Let me explain it right now.

– The App component is a container with Router. It gets app state from Vuex store/auth. Then the navbar now can display based on the state. App component also passes state to its child components.

– Login & Register components have form for submission data (with support of vee-validate). We call Vuex store dispatch() function to make login/register actions.

– Our Vuex actions call auth.service methods which use axios to make HTTP requests. We also store or get JWT from Browser Local Storage inside these methods.

– Home component is public for all visitor.

– Profile component get user data from its parent component and display user information.

– BoardUser, BoardModerator, BoardAdmin components will be displayed by Vuex state user.roles. In these components, we use user.service to get protected resources from API.

– user.service uses auth-header() helper function to add JWT to HTTP Authorization header. auth-header() returns an object containing the JWT of the currently logged in user from Local Storage.

Technology

– vue: 2.6.10
– vue-router: 3.0.3
– vuex: 3.0.1
– axios: 0.19.0
– vee-validate: 2.2.15
– bootstrap: 4.3.1
– vue-fontawesome: 0.1.7

Vue 3 version at:
Vue 3 Authentication with JWT, Vuex, Axios and Vue Router

Project Structure

The structure of Vue front-end project is simple:

You can understand it properly without any explanation.

Implementation

You can find step by step to implement this Vue – Vuex App in the post:
Vue.js JWT Authentication with Vuex and Vue Router

Typescript version: Vue/Vuex Typescript: JWT Authentication example

Vue 3 version: Vue 3 Authentication with JWT, Vuex, Axios and Vue Router

Source Code

The complete source code for this tutorial can be found at Spring Boot with Vue.js Github.

Conclusion

Now we have an overview of Spring Boot Vue.js Authentication example using JWT, Spring Security and Vuex along with flow for signup/login actions.

We also take a look at Spring Boot server architecture for JWT Authentication using Spring Sercurity & Spring Data JPA, as well as Vue.js project structure for building a front-end app working with JWT.

Next tutorials will show you more details about how to implement this interesting system:
– Back-end:

• Using MySQL
• Using PostgreSQL
• Using MongoDB

– Front-end:

• Vue 2 / Vue 2 Typescript
• Vue 3

Run both Project on same server/port:
How to integrate Vue.js with Spring Boot

Further Reading

• Spring Boot: Spring Security
• Vuex Guide
• In-depth Introduction to JWT-JSON Web Token